tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55007246039900303022017-02-08T20:45:30.859-08:00The giving HeartThis blog is a reflection to my thoughts in terms of my people, surroundings, current updates, spiritual corner and what not. I warn, the posts may cover anything from crap to divine knowledge or something which proved influencing even though dragging !!
It is being made/written in self interest.Exclusively.
Readers are invited to read, comment, criticise, praise cutting short the 'copy-paste' process :)
Enjoy !!Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-22951927946621358822011-07-30T03:23:00.000-07:002011-07-30T07:07:09.389-07:00This one’s for you Motss..a memoir<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2BGnq1K4lQ0/TjPcDuyH5KI/AAAAAAAAAII/zToEdyqps7Y/s1600/anki.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 315px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2BGnq1K4lQ0/TjPcDuyH5KI/AAAAAAAAAII/zToEdyqps7Y/s320/anki.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635089515426604194" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">Well…now this is something I have been longing to give you since…umm.. you were born and was brought home wrapped in a soft cloth...but I pulled myself waiting to create more of good memories and re-relishing those moments of joy. And I guess it’s time as I have no idea when we shall meet next to cherish the childhood, teenage and youthfulness we had secretly enjoyed together. Yesterday night I had this weird dream that both of us were traveling towards our respective destinations in the same train but separate coaches. When suddenly the coaches had to demagnatised to move forward in different directions. There we meet in the middle of the time to bid goodbye…as if…we won’t see each other again…we had tears and didn’t say anything! Strange! Isn’t it?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">The dream poured energy and words into me to write the letter that had been longing to be penned down.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">Do you remember how I stared at the little you when you were first brought home? You were the first baby I saw in my till then life and how exciting it was for me to touch your tiny fingers and soft nails. “When will she grow up,” I asked your Mom. “It will take years,” she said. “But how?” I queried again. “Like this?,”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I asked lifting my toes above, she nodded. “Why doesn’t she open her eyes?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Can I take her upstairs?” (Our beautiful home where we lived together) I didn’t know then that you were going to be revengeful for my sticky questions after a few years time. You grew up to a very loud, hypersensitive, infantile duck who loved to dance, act and cry all the time, the crying sound that was loud enough to cross all borders of our long walled home only to reach to my classroom in the nearby school. “Oh! Guddu is crying again.” I thought while sharpening my pencil. I used to call you Guddu, shifting to Ankita and finally to Motss making you feel more loved.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">And suddenly I hear my teacher looking for girl called ‘Tina’ . I froze! “How on Earth does she know my nick name?” I wondered and decided not to respond to the teacher. Actually I felt really shy thinking that classmates would tease me with my nick name. But after the ceaseless announcements I moused out the class to give myself a shocking surprise! It was you with red little sniffing nose holding your Mom’s hand. “She wanted to see you and play with you?” “Whatt!” I screamed to myself. I felt so embarrassed (after all even I was a kid then) taking you towards the play ground in mid of my class. Thatt was your first revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">When we changed the school you joined then singing group and I made you realise how terrible you sing and after years of non-stop crying your throat cleared itself to a rejuvenated voice now. Yes, you sing pretty well now..still out of accent but better (wink) and your beautiful expression-full dance will be missed for sure dear. Dare you not forget how you entangled my lovely new water bottle with yours and threw it out of the school bus to break it into two under the tyres? I wanted to kill you then, but your face was already dead with horror. Lol you were afraid of me still you wanted to be with me. Thatt was your second revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">Remember our first and only fight when we shouted at each other standing in the balcony? <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Am glad it never happened again otherwise my hands would have got bloodied. The vocational library of ours where we used to rent books for free! Courtesy to the grandest Pa of your’s.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Still we managed enough cash to catch a rickshaw and tumble down to the nearby restaurant and have the first party together. Our new year parties arranged for each member of the family in a way inspired you to manage elegant events in future.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">I still don’t know why you changed your means of communication to school from bus to autorickshaw. Thatt was your third revenge. Bus stop was so much fun ya. And auto rickshaw..don’t forget once you had fallen down after your water bottle did from the rick, we shouted, “bhaiya ladki gir gai, ladki gir gai” and what was that! I saw you walking towards the bus with the conductor holding your hand. You were carried to school by bus.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">I won’t detail about the ‘suno suno tring tring tring’ era and the ‘Kammo’ dance we did everyday without fail in our vacations. But the ball dance on ‘ek ladki bheegi bhagi si’ has been best of all. You almost break my bones while dancing. And oh! The painting classes we used to go every Saturday and Sunday reminds me of the dog that almost hugged you down on the street and the anti-mosquito ointment you used to apply right after entering the classes (lol, most sensitive kid turned into the most defective piece of the family) I never told you about how choked I felt with laughter when you carried that weird multicoloured umbrella clipped on top of your head messing up all your hair, it looked funny really. Then our commonly shared hobby of stickers and cards collection was a perfect partnership wasn’t it? And your boogie-woogie dance classes made every kid in the colony drool over you.Do I need to mention about you falling every now and then from anywhere and everywhere you go. Don’t know how much you remember; hope these memories would give a knock.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">Before we entered into our well-heeled life, it was Jagjeet singh who accompanied both of us in our dreamy teenage, we were crazy for him, remember? Am sorry for those sleepy late nights when I always slept leaving you on your own to finish the movie of my choice. But am not sorry for your teary sniffs and whimpers you exhaled while watching an emotional movie. Hmpf you used to take it all personally and fill the handkerchief with mucous.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">Then came the times of never turning back and we walked ahead in our career. Though we couldn’t make many memories after that but the important times of need were shared. I am truly thankful for being beside me at the time of Bhaiya and my wedding, will always remember this. But surely we have a beautiful life ahead to explore more fun together. So what if we are married, we shall plan out vacations with our misters, alright?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">I used to talk about you to my friends saying that you were my better half, there was always this thread of concerned love that tied us regardless of the far away location. Though there were people in the surrounding who took us as foibles, but we maintained it secretly. Our intensity of care and share we shared made people jealous but somehow it bruised me a bit extra to tolerate and I very very reluctantly withdrew myself to a certain level. But writing is something no one can stop me from and I can write an epic on our tightfistedness. I seldom express but you are fondly loved by me, my tears said this when you were married off and Abhi wiped my face after we returned home. Thatt was your last revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">Well there’s something I want to confess that I myself realized very late is that I never wanted to share you with anyone. May be because I never had a younger sister and we were more of like sises. That was the reason I never liked you going to neighborhood friend to play and that was also the reason I never liked many other things that are unexplainable for me here. But now I can see you well secured in the hands of a gentleman whose eyes are filled with true love. Yuvraj, if you ever read this, I have to say just one thing, “She is precious and a very good human being, be with her is all what she would ask you for.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">I cherish those days with weepy eyes knowing that they won’t come back ever again, nor do we have enough videos and photographs to keep it safe. Confiding everything here in written, I guess will take us to the long lost journey after we have walked past a long path to future of post marriage, youthlessness, wrinkled, bald/ snowy hair (lol) and more experienced. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">You will be always loved, God Bless!!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">And yeah! how could I forget Happy Friendship's Day dear!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;">cheers..</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:20.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&quot;Rage Italic&quot;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-84074571127617173462011-06-26T02:45:00.000-07:002011-06-26T03:33:02.663-07:00Malice towards N(one)<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oAhvMVayqes/TgcATQ_mOFI/AAAAAAAAAIA/6niFZEdBEA4/s1600/Absolute_khushwant.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622462990774581330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 216px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oAhvMVayqes/TgcATQ_mOFI/AAAAAAAAAIA/6niFZEdBEA4/s320/Absolute_khushwant.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><br />As a child I didn’t have any clue I have been reading and laughing on jokes of the matchless, exceptional, incomparable and one of the most contentious writer in the history of Indian authors.<br />I assumed Khushwant Singh to be another Jaspal Bhatti cracking jokes after jokes in his books. But as clueless as I was about the epics being written by this fearless writer on most ticklish and sensitive issues of Women and Sex, Pakistan, Hindus and Muslims, India and its Politicians, Indian History, Death, Eunuchs and some more of Women and Sex.<br /><br />Amidst his innumerable books, I have till now flipped just a few of them and I already feel I have known him quite closely. Perhaps some very minute characteristics of him have been telepathically communicated into me while reading his joke books. Since childhood I never missed anything written on, about or by Khushwant with a prospect of reading something funny, oblivious to the fact that I aspire to be a Journalist or a writer or a dedicated reader of his sincere books. In fact when I first read his first book ‘Train to Pakistan’ I scribbled in my diary about how at times his thoughts match to that of mine.<br /><br />Nevertheless Khushwant Singh has been densely criticised and often referred as ‘nasty old man’ for his bold and promiscuous writings. Many of my friends rather most of them hate him and never touch his books calling him insane while I as a teenager postponed reading him imagining his books to be too serious for my age (although that was true). It’s not that I condemn people’s criticism because Khushwant really gets nasty many times and writes daringly on the most hidden curiosity of human mind that they always deny facing even to their conscience!<br /><br />I take him quite realistically, considering his explicit writing as his inquisitive fascination on several subjects and belongingness towards the nation. Apparently that’s the reason Pakistan, Partition, Muslims, Sikh, Death and Dead, Unapproachable, mysterious and secretive characters, Ghosts and Eunuchs have been his major area of concern. Of course Khushwant remains incomplete if I don’t mention something that he has been disapproved most, even now in the age of 97. How could we forget the diversity in age and class in women, their femininity and their nationality that always appealed him more to first experience and pen them down later in his books? Try to think privately with just yourself; don’t you feel an impression of a mischievous child in that old nasty man? Weird enough to be intrusive, to annoy, irritate, stand to rebukes of readers; Yet research and opine on the topics only he is interested in.<br /><br />Well, I would call this old nasty man of 97 years ‘a true Sardar’ and alternatively ‘a true writer’. Really. He chose his own style of freedom in his thoughts, works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and short stories, even as a tourist guide and in unfolding the beauty of women and their characteristics. He wrote what he was not asked for but what he felt is wanted..that should be the spirit of a writer. C’mon you can’t deny he is still one of the most incompetent authors in the country.<br /><br />Read him once and you would know the quality of knowledge he has to serve, his vocabulary and perfect usage of words would convince you to believe, he is a man of wisdom, just that he writes bluntly doesn’t take his intelligence away.<br />Although he is 95+ now, and suffering from "a declining body, impaired vision, impaired hearing and soon, no doubt, mental degeneration", Khushwant's output, both written and spoken, remains uninterrupted.<br /><br />The man who persistently had ‘malice towards none’, now with ‘death at his doorstep’ rests peacefully on his armchair with a realisation that there are still many who has ‘malice towards one’…. </div>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-14047064170388654322011-03-16T22:23:00.000-07:002011-03-17T00:21:51.302-07:00My Melodic Communiqué<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AeLQn7-xbek/TYGc1cf218I/AAAAAAAAAH0/2Dm-Y5Do0xU/s1600/loneliness1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584917454912935874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AeLQn7-xbek/TYGc1cf218I/AAAAAAAAAH0/2Dm-Y5Do0xU/s320/loneliness1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w-S1T1yr63A/TYGc1OlGGtI/AAAAAAAAAHs/cV3uTnP9L-Q/s1600/loneliness.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584917451176811218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 314px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w-S1T1yr63A/TYGc1OlGGtI/AAAAAAAAAHs/cV3uTnP9L-Q/s320/loneliness.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><strong><em>Childhood/ School:</em></strong><br /><br />- The sound of wind when I first learnt about the word breeze<br />- The sound of allah-ho-akbar early in morning @ 5.10 that woke me up to dress for school<br />- … of trucks moving on early winter mornings made me think how people start working from the wee hours of the day (just like me :)<br />- … of those footsteps of the neighbour’s guard who would steal flowers from my garden, I used to listen him walking, from the loo<br />- … of my school bus’ horn honking from a range of 200 meters at 6.15 am<br />- … of fart in a silent class<br />- … of rough chalk running on the blackboard to create immense irritation to ears<br />- …of Principal’s stick on disobeyed hands accompanied with an echo sound ‘Why don’t you Talk in English’<br />- … of dusters banging the desks ordering ‘Keep Quiet’<br />-… of those 10 statue bells smacked by the peon to control the chaotic movements and sounds made after lunch followed by pin drop silence.<br />- … of that sabziwali calling out everyone and the little me sneaked out from my old home in Civil Lines that got replaced with a posh society without any street vendors<br />- …of that unripe little mango mistakenly dropped down while plucking from the tree to make a thump on neighbour’s tin sheet in those naughty summer afternoons<br />- … of the pages of a book flipping by the winds at the time of evening terrace studying<br /><br /><br /><strong><em>Adolescence/ Profession/ Post engagement:</em></strong><br /><br />- The sound of the peon in our media institute calling from the classroom’s window to the hostel’s room ‘Sir agaya’<br />- The sound of the insect on a lonely night on the top of the hostel’s terrace<br />- … of Richa’s bold voice waking me up ‘Tina chal khadi ho ja’<br />- …of the boss calling out your name in front of the staff giving you goose bumps<br />- … of chat message that popped up always at the wrong time when boss is around<br />- … of typing, printing and murmuring in a newspaper office<br />- … of the train crossing by from nearby lane @ 3 am registering its presence<br />- … of the guard’s whistles forcing me to keep awake @ 3.15 am<br />- … of the chirp made by the birds sitting outside my window asking to be fed<br />- … of my phone ringing after a long wait for two little words ‘Love Morning’<br />- … of my sister’s old Luna that I wanted to be silenced with a scooty<br />- … of kids howling in the society on a holiday eve<br />- … of the cat under my bed in labour pain<br />- … of that old fan mocking from above when I used to rest in my father’s office<br />- … of chaiwala in an overcrowded compartment of a train<br />- … of silence while meditating with a group of 25000 people<br /><br /><strong><em>Post Wedding:</em></strong><br />- The sound of his snores on first night…<br />- The sound of the pressure cooker’s whistles calling me to put it off knob<br />- … of the alarming wake-up alarms of really early mornings<br />- … of the out stationed husband over the phone who’s half asleep<br />- … of the FM blaring from the father-in-law’s room<br />- … of silence in the empty summer afternoons<br />- …of half hanging newspapers stuck on the glass slider of a new house waiting for curtains<br />- … of the doorbell and continuous scary knocks, when I am unwilling to open the door in a lonely flat.<br />- …of the elevator reaching my bedroom tearing all the doors and window panes<br /><br /><strong><em>Family:</em></strong><br />- The sound of my father scolding someone that threatens the victim to pee in his pants<br />- The sound of my dad’s vehicle that always told me about his arrival and that I have to switch to the study table<br />- … of the mild shivering cries of the new born baby at my home<br />- … of my brother’s limping footsteps he took before getting bedridden<br />- … of that scream just before bhai used to go into fits<br />- … of his coughing I heard on his last day while leaving for office<br />- … of my mom’s sobs over the phone after bhai was gone<br />- … of my father’s rare laugh </div></div>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-47853860203108831412011-03-05T07:21:00.000-08:002011-03-05T08:23:40.196-08:00Clearly Cluttered!<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aHhZJU6TcYE/TXJjaYi9EzI/AAAAAAAAAHk/zk3tsvSL7Ko/s1600/images_image001.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5580632193182274354" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 228px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aHhZJU6TcYE/TXJjaYi9EzI/AAAAAAAAAHk/zk3tsvSL7Ko/s320/images_image001.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div>At first I thought it's a writer's block again, but I draft a post almost daily on different topics and the moment I try adding more words to a post, there're other things that arrests my mind. They say, we should also be written. I decided to wait and write this first.<br /><br />I have experienced and heard about writer's block but I don't know what term is it for what am experiencing now..may be Writer's Fix...? I don't know. It's like I have so much to write about, so much to share, but the output is a drafted incomplete post longing to get published. Though my diary gets updated almost every 3rd day, am stiffly reading books of various genre, am not watching much of movies lately, am travelling a lot to observe and experiment more about things and people, that way I must have so much to write on. But see...am still going no where.<br /><br />What's it called?? Is there a specified term?<br /><br />Well, I think writer's block is better than the current situation, atleast there you are on a break to spend time with blankness, here you feel so clearly cluttered that you know what you want to write i.e on various topics at the same time but then you end up with nothing solid to be served!<br />This makes me feel so incomplete and full of guilt. Every morning before opening the laptop I decide to finish atleast one post, I open the document, re-read it, think, write 2-3 lines and close it suddenly to write on yet another new topic.<br /><br />And see, now on the spur of the moment I believe I have got the solution to this disorderliness...my mind says, the only way to come out of it is, in stead of starting with something new, finish writing the ones that are facing the pause and then start afresh :)<br /><br />Alright then, am back to finish writing!!<br /><br />Cheers!</div>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-7882830152428239382011-02-03T05:00:00.000-08:002011-02-07T03:45:45.869-08:00The ‘F’ word, just too much of it…<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TUq7UvHaQdI/AAAAAAAAAHM/esveJrkCSuY/s1600/Emo_Emo_loneliness_011771_.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569469854116364754" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TUq7UvHaQdI/AAAAAAAAAHM/esveJrkCSuY/s320/Emo_Emo_loneliness_011771_.jpg" border="0" /></a> A Page From My Diary...<br /><br /><br />“Oh! He’s my best friend”, “C’mon Mom she’s a great friend, I won’t stand a word against her”, I have heard it a lot and they define it as “A friend is someone who cares, loves, annoys, makes you feel happy, blabber about anything on Earth just to make you feel comfortable and just so much he does that, that kind of bookish friend hasn’t encountered me yet!! I mean, why you believe so much in friendship that you sometimes forget that, the one whom you call your friend could change his apparel any moment.<br />I really haven’t met such a person till date for whom I could sigh like that. I believe I have almost crossed the considered age to make experiments on new friends now. In fact I very strongly don’t feel the need to have one, because then comes that burden of sharing, caring, bitching, shopping, exclude the feeling of unconditional friendship. And you know what, I have lived them all already, now no more, can’t afford it. Because with the entire sharing caring thing comes another bunch of complementary stuff called cribbing and complaining. Atleast I have had a kind of bitter experience in all those relationships I named as friendship. Possibly that’s why this word always turns me off.<br /><br />But I have been thinking on it since quite a long time. Why does everyone almost everyone around me believes in it so much, in spite of getting betrayed, hurt, insulted, ignored a number of times. Do they still want to try or continue experimenting? Or they are just too afraid to walk without a mate?<br />I have heard people saying, he’s my true friend, have heard myself saying, “he could be my true friend”, I have heard them saying for me, “she’s a true friend”, dude I don’t have a clue about what it is! This word ‘true friend’ somehow annoys me, irritates me, sounds fictitious, fabricated and bookish and I pungently feel there’s nothing called a true friend. I have always been surrounded with people, mostly good ones, whom I tagged as friends and unthinkingly traveled on the same path of fiction. Assuming them as people I could confide upon, whom I could call at midnight and ask for help, who would realize what the matter is, just with a glance of my face, but all of it was worthless and simply my imagination. At one point of time most of them failed turning me to an atheist to friendship.<br />I know this post would cheese off many people but for a while just try to analyse this term friend and ask yourself with closed eyes who’s that friendly angel of your life whom you truly want just for yourself, not to freak out with or for the world to show off. The one who’s always there for you, anyone? For some of you, there could be some, well in that case I would say, am just unlucky hmm? My experience says that real or true friendship is history now. Lately, it’s like, call them for a movie or a beer, they pop up from anywhere they would be, but call them when in need, the replies you would get would remind you of this post. Just try it.<br /><br />They say friendship is an art, an easy one to know, understand and follow while I really am poor in arts, I find it hard to decipher. Could be a problem with me too! But telling you out of the experiences of the people who shared with me their grievances (mistakenly imagining me as their friend) have walked through the same path as I did.<br /><br />So, I hereby swear to eliminate the word ‘friendship’ from the glossary of my life because I have been dragging it since years now and the increased weight has become too heavy to carry. And this is for the people whom I am close to or the ones, who are close to me, “Am not trying to be frosty or getting you off the hook, just spare me with that ‘f’ word, I don’t believe in it anymore. Hope you understand, and if you don’t, even that doesn’t matter anymore J”<br /><br />Cheers to the unfriendly me, a Friend For-never!!Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-16093158482114134002010-09-15T23:53:00.000-07:002010-09-16T00:00:29.943-07:00The Spitter’s Saga<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TJG_cb8y_WI/AAAAAAAAAG0/PsgEEJLSUqg/s1600/pan2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TJG_cb8y_WI/AAAAAAAAAG0/PsgEEJLSUqg/s320/pan2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517401513765567842" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TJG_RagrOXI/AAAAAAAAAGs/tIkpEOUHXPw/s1600/3243220202_0d94111187.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TJG_RagrOXI/AAAAAAAAAGs/tIkpEOUHXPw/s320/3243220202_0d94111187.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517401324400621938" border="0" /></a><br /><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} p {mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} span.about {mso-style-name:about;} span.highlightedsearchterm {mso-style-name:highlightedsearchterm;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:18;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><i>Yaaak Thooo…HolyDove</i>! Make way for the red shower to reach it’s goal..<i>Thhumpp! </i>and it sticks to the wall forever. You ask what??</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Well, something that’s beyond Government’s Unique Identification Number or Voter Id card. Something that identifies Indians as Indians. Something that is national passion and favourite pastime. And that ‘something’ is ‘Spitting’. The nation has an ancient fondness for something called paan -- a betel leaf wrapped around a varying mix of areca nuts, cardamom, lime paste, tobacco and other flavours and after it is chewed, there are two places it could go, down or out!.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b style="">Art of Spitting<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Armed with a mouth full of saliva mixed in discharges from the respiratory passages, they leisurely shoot it on all the walls, may it be walls of post offices, railway stations, bus stands, streets, adjoining walls of some residential/office building, bazaars and why not the hidden wall behind the elevator? If you haven’t noticed it yet then do it next time you climb an elevator and press a button before exit so that it explores some other floors while you check the copper-stained-walls-behind-the-elevator that have been rusted from the infected saliva of spitters. The guthkas and paans are to be blamed that lure these innocent people who are in a habit of constantly chewing paan and after few minutes just like the itch needs to be scratched, the spit also has to be smacked out. </span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I paused for about seven minutes when I first saw it, wondering how they actually do it! And how on earth could the ‘impossible to reach’ part of the wall i.e between the two floors could ever be stained. Possibly the elevator constructers were too pissed with the contractor and they retaliated by decorating the walls with grime, I concluded the thought to leave. Or it could be the job of spit-haters who love to part with our bodily fluids and ‘thoo’ it on the walls, I thought again later.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Recently a columnist explained the whole concept as the biological make-up that enables them (the spit-haters) to produce so much of stuff that seem to be forever having to get rid of and expel it from the body lest they fall sick and die. It’s funny that the spit is not only crimson or blood red but also transparent and green! Don’t ask how. You must have seen the streets and public toilets patched with thick cough like phlegm ridiculing at you as if you have been commanded to wipe them off with naked hands.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b style="">These Do No Good Too<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Nevertheless the ‘Do Not Spit Here’ sign post do no good, rather, itself gets bathed with the sputum yet stands still in a (S)pitiable condition. If spitters are at the bus stand, they will spit at the stand while they are waiting, on the steps of the bus while boarding, and through the window on the road while riding. The auto-rickshaw-wallah will slow down while spitting, the taxi driver will poke out his head and spit in the air, the truck driver won’t even look while spitting. (Seems like there is some big spitting marathon going on in the country and everyone’s in.)</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;font-size:130%;" >“A tourist friend of mine from Netherland initially got horrified to misunderstand the red spit as blood and got impatient to know why so many people suffer from almost the same disease and still be unnoticed. But soon it dawned on her that the </span><span style="font-size:130%;">terracotta haze is nothing but a filthy, unhealthy, smutty and stinking habit that many Indians acquire, Isnt’t it petulant?” asked Akanksha, a bank employee irritably.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b style="">How About this<span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;font-size:130%;" >It won’t be surprising if Indians approach the International Olympic Committee with a proposal to introduce a new sport ‘the Spitathlon’. Since most Indians practice the sport, it is sure to get huge viewership and fans. Millions of tobacco companies would sponsor and zillons of money would flow in</span><span style="font-size:130%;">. Doubtlessly for Indians to become world champs.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">“Though my teeth are stained and my mouth smells but I make sure to get rid of the first juice of paan that is dangerous for health so I spit,” comforted Jagpal, a businessman. But Where? Where do you spit? “Ah! That’s not a worry, there are many places.” he winked. Okhay!! </span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b style="">This Would Do!<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;">In <st1:country-region st="on">China</st1:country-region> and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Dubai</st1:place></st1:city>, chewing and spitting paan, especially in public places, is prohibited. Dare you suggest that we take the same approach here in this country, soon some bleeding heart liberal sena attacks on you and declare it a person’s human right to spit on the pavement. </span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Let’s start a secret campaign of saying ‘yukk’ to the people spitting around. Make ickiest face looking at the blob of gob spitted by them. If this doesn’t work, maximum we could do is to make sconces like brackets on the walls with a door to cover. Two motives are fulfilled here, one the spit is out as usual on the wall second the wall still looks clean and beautiful. Atleast the distemper and paint expenses would be limited to four walls of the sconce. Spitters beware, all of this is a flabby ‘something’ to annoy the people but once they vow to stop you, the maroon infected sputum would go down, not out.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >CAUTION</span><span style="font-size:130%;">: E</span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">ffects</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">of</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">chewing</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">paan</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> are very similar to that </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">of</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">chewing</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> tobacco. Many people think that </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">chewing</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">paan</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> is safer than smoking tobacco. But studies have shown that instead </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">of</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> being safer, they are equally, if not more detrimental to one's health. This is because, </span><span class="highlightedsearchterm" style="font-size:130%;">paan</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> with betel nut and the other spices is kept in your mouth for minutes at a time, causing more harmful chemicals to enter your body than when you smoke - you just shift your lung problems to your mouth. </span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="about"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-15806522287032938302010-09-12T23:37:00.001-07:002010-09-16T03:51:23.928-07:00On Amrita Pritam, For Amrita Pritam, Because of Amrita Pritam<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TJHvmxCTCII/AAAAAAAAAG8/ilFfJ2bE-Og/s1600/siddiqi_and_chief.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 311px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TJHvmxCTCII/AAAAAAAAAG8/ilFfJ2bE-Og/s320/siddiqi_and_chief.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517454467782609026" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-IN;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-size:130%;">Very lately I finished a book in Hindi (well yes, I tried my eyes on Hindi for a change), it's called <b>'Paanch Baras Lambi Sadak' </b>by <b>Amruta Pritam</b>. Oh! quite a heavy one for someone who keep oneself distant from the deep thoughts, solitude and being too sensitive.<br />It carries a few short stories and a long story too, called 'Yatri'. Each story gives an idea on how drastically life twists itself within a span of five years and how, for some it's a long time while for others it's not the case. 'Yatri' on teh other hand was bit dragging and extremely saddistic to handle, but I read it patiently.<br />It proved a bit heavy to me for the reason I simply couldn't absorb the idea of someone writing so very well. I mean that's what I would call a perfect writer, Amrita Pritam had the ability to connect each and every word and thing she wrote, knew exactly what she wanted to express further, skilled to pour life into the dead and non living things. It took quite a long time for me to finish a book of just 180-200 pages because unlike other usual books, it forced me meditate it! Sink in. Within.<br />It surely weren't the stories in particular that swayed my thoughts but the pensiveness of the author left me hysterically wondering how..how could it be possible for a human being to think of something so sublime! And then I find my eyebrows raised with a thought 'it's just the first book of Amrita Pritam that I have read, what would happen if I read further?' The writer's soul within me says that her writing has a capability to deject a good writer and elevate an aspiring writer. And I decided to be an aspiring one. May be forever. May be till I finish reading all her books. May be till the day I become a writer like her.<br />I was experiencing a block recently, it wasn't the writer's block exactly but yes, something near to it because I knew I wanted to write but the cause was missing. Thankfully, it's over now. Amrita Pritam definitely added fuel to the tank of words, though she is all about Hindi, the language which is absolutely alien to me when it comes to writing, but her style of writing is brisk, sausy, novel, unused and fresh forever. Really believe it or not she was an awesome woman of thoughts and words.<br />Her writing is like...you are isolated? Not liking it? Read her, you will love your solitude and would want to be there forever. If you aren't isolated because you are afraid of it, that fear will go off once you read her, because you will start loving it. And if you aren't isolated at all for no reason, you should want to have a cozy corner in life where you could read her heartfully. The latter one goes with me!<br /><br />So guys don't miss a chance to read her at least once if you want to try some serious reading or writing for that matter.<br />And as for now I am back to my very own shelf of books backlogging since ages, namely: 'At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks (more than half done) and 'Wuthering Heights a classic' (just started) and many more. They feel ignored, therefore, after a brief attention to them, I would be back to Amrita Pritam's Biography called 'Rasidi Ticket'. Yeah, I have already got it with me, courtesy to my friend Raj.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br />:)</span>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-74128693168016928752010-08-27T03:08:00.000-07:002010-08-27T04:39:31.456-07:00Status updated!!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THeRhGjs5OI/AAAAAAAAAGc/cqynQc0_j94/s1600/status-update-chart.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THeRhGjs5OI/AAAAAAAAAGc/cqynQc0_j94/s320/status-update-chart.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510032666993157346" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Did you update your status today? Dude, Dudette, Boss, Jobless friend, “C’mon! ofcourse we did!”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Dude @11 am</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Gtalk status:</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >“The sound in silence..boss snoring”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Yahoo status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">“</span></span>WTF, Monday sucks big time.”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Facebook status:</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >“Me going to have a bash this weekend, are you coming?”<br />Etc…<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Dudette @ 11 am</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Gtalk status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> </span>“Why is that guy from the other cubie peeping into mine every 10 mins, huh! Oh! BDW my new boss is the dumbest person I have ever met, gonna kick this org soon.”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Yahoo status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" > “Things are getting better with him now..but could be worse soon.”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Facebook status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> </span>“Aah! Had a bathtub wash, emerged from the rich lather and showered in Palmolive bodywash…Sonu are you coming?”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Dude @ 5 pm</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Gtalk status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"> </span>“The smell of air..boss just farted”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Yahoo status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> </span>“WTF, shit Monday, shit Tuesday and shit office, gf…oh shit forgot to call her again!”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Facebook status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> </span>“Am sorry my darling babe..I won’t betray you again. Am coming…”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Dudette @ 5 pm</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Gtalk status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> </span>“…but he seems to be so cute. And boss huh! He sucks the life outta me”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Yahoo status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" > “You a** **** get the f*** outta my life…I call off this relationship”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Facebook status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" > “The day doesn’t seem to be great enough, my pervert TL assigns me shit stuff, need a refreshing bath again.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Boss @ 11 am</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Gtalk status:</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >“Understand fully what your company does for your living.”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Facebook status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" > “Don’t doodle or daydream at meetings. Work. Perform. Overtime. Perform. Target. Perform. Result. My Peformance.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Boss @ 5 pm</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Gtalk status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" > “Dudette, you are FIRED” “Dude, come and meet me in my cabin.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Some jobless friend</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Gtalk status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> </span>“Work hard, party harder, letz go guys..”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Yahoo status:</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >“Decent guy searching for a nice girlfriend..dudette are you free?”<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Facebook status:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" > “Ppl, there is this girl called ‘dudette’, just called off from her bf, try her. Mail id is….____”<br /><br />Folks, I believe it’s high time to watch out for the zombie-sh status’ that we have had imbibed to update on hourly basis. Because someone freak (like the jobless friend or the boss in that case) might be secretly infiltrating into those of your cashew-nutty lines with a conclusive mind to FIRE you.<br />There have been already a few cases recently and before it gets accelerated let’s resolve not to update anything personal that could invite people (like that of the dudette’s), anything professionally offensive that could terminate you, anything frustrating that could give chance to people to talk about you or take advantage of that.<br /><br />I usually update my status that’s either inspiring, or encouraging/sometimes discouraging too, or complaining, or preaching and etc that’s swimming in my mind at the moment…I try to avoid mentioning stuff about ‘what’s going in my life’, sometimes my updates surely connects to me indirectly and again it opens a keyhole for useless (at times useful) people to peep and make conclusions as per their convenience. But then it depends on how you deal with it. Back step or back fire. I don’t know how many people like or dislike updating their status, nor do I want to know but we need to understand that it’s not a private place at all. They say, it sometimes pays in public life to be a high profile ant worker. And it’s true to some extent.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >It could be even otherwise, nobody cares for your status updates. There are many irritating ones who rant in long cluttered sentences, about every organism that passes by. You are not being read, so please quit updating. Because we simply don't care.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >Anyway too much of gyan is prohibited I know…just this; if you have that itch to update your status then scratch it by renewing/ranting/criticising/playing/teasing but BEWARE you are being watched!!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >So, Dude, Dudette, Boss, Jobless friend, did you just update your status??</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:georgia;" >“Forever…”</span><br /></span>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-12293222836159623502010-08-24T00:32:00.001-07:002010-08-26T01:05:23.044-07:00He made his ‘unknown’, known…<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><a style="font-family: georgia;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THN12QOBPSI/AAAAAAAAAF0/H0y-tLQl2Q8/s1600/saumil.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THN12QOBPSI/AAAAAAAAAF0/H0y-tLQl2Q8/s320/saumil.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508876344131403042" border="0" /></a></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">An exclusive interview with Saumil Shrivastava of Raipur, the debut author of ‘A Roller Coaster Ride-When an IITian met a Bitsian girl’ and share his experiences with the readers. </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Everyone has a good story hidden in their head and there was a magnificent one in Saumil Shrivastava’s too. The only difference is some of these stories get the opportunity of being penned down while some breathes their last in the minds itself. And to avoid the death of that thought this should be followed ‘Write about it by day, and dream about it by night’. </span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">This citizen of Raipur currently in Gurgaon has done one such thing, he has come up with a full fledged novel that took birth in his mind as an ocean of thoughts which he has shared with the whole country. ‘A Roller Coaster Ride- When an IITian met a BITsian girl’ had hit the book stores on June 15 and is playing well in the markets all over.</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Excerpts of the interview: </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">1. What was in your mind when the thought struck to write a novel, like ‘can I really do this?’</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: Honestly speaking, initially I was bit skeptical. I was worried about many things such as how the story would turn out to be and what will be the reaction of the readers. But thanks to Mili, my wife who pushed me motivated, I was able to complete my debut novel without many roadblocks. I’m happy that majority of the readers till date have loved the story. Infact, couple of readers felt that their life is like A Roller Coaster Ride similar to that of the protagonist in the novel. So it is really satisfactory.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">2. I have read the novel and I liked the story but I wanted to know why have you portrayed the main character of the novel as extremely foolish in his personal life, like have you met such real life character ever?</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: Not just one many. Right from my college days to my workplace, I have seen so many bright lads make a FOOL out of them going blind in love. It’s not that they were born foolish, but it’s just that when in love many times we tend to lose our identity.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">3. Have you started thought processing on your next work? </span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: Yes, it should be out in the market sometime mid 2011.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">4. How’s the response from readers, any suggestions they gave?</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: My novel launched on June 15. It’s just been two months and the 2nd print is out in the market, so I must say that the response is really encouraging. On a serious note, one common feedback that I have got from different section of readers is: that the novel is "Interesting and Gripping". So I must say for my debut novel I am pretty much satisfied for now. Definitely, there are some loop holes and some scope for improvement. I would try to improve with every book I write further. </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">5. Who are the editors of the novel, you didn’t mention them?</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: The book is published by the Srishti Publishers. They have their own set of editors who have done the editing.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">6. Has Chetan Bhagat, by any chance inspired you?</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: Not really. I always dreamt of being a script writer much before Chetan Bhagat launched his 1st novel. But his success did ensure that publishers in India started taking experience-based authors more seriously. </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">7. What are your passions besides writing?</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: I am quite interested in singing. It’s in my blood. My Mom and my sister they are among the best singers in my home town. One fine day I definitely wish to improve my skills in this area. </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">I have also been associated with a World Peace Organization, NGO for the past 4 yrs, as I strongly believe when you succeed you should share it with others. So, community service is the best option. It is just a small attempt to return to the society I live in. </span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">8. A message for the youths and those being fooled in love…</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">Saumil: Being in love should be the best feeling in the world but if it is not then don’t be in one. Don’t just drag the relationship for the sake of being in a relationship. </span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">For those who are fooled in love, I would say “Get a grip on your life”. Be in love but don’t lose your self respect. Else when you grow older, you will realize you were such a big FOOL.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;">For more information about the author, book review and readers opinion check http://saumili.com - official site of the book.</span></span></div>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-59068510557824915012010-08-24T00:25:00.000-07:002010-08-26T01:06:55.856-07:00From The Book Shelf<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THYf7OyIjsI/AAAAAAAAAF8/hyCzv55ykWk/s1600/A+Roller+Coaster+Ride+-+Saumil+Shrivastava.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 319px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THYf7OyIjsI/AAAAAAAAAF8/hyCzv55ykWk/s320/A+Roller+Coaster+Ride+-+Saumil+Shrivastava.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509626296575495874" border="0" /></a><br /><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Georgia; 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mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br /> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <u1:worddocument> <u1:view>Normal<u1:zoom>0<u1:punctuationkerning/> <u1:validateagainstschemas/> <u1:saveifxmlinvalid>false<u1:ignoremixedcontent>false<u1:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false<u1:compatibility> <u1:breakwrappedtables/> <u1:snaptogridincell/> <u1:wraptextwithpunct/> <u1:useasianbreakrules/> <u1:dontgrowautofit/> <u1:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</u1:browserlevel> </u1:compatibility> </u1:alwaysshowplaceholdertext> </u1:ignoremixedcontent> </u1:saveifxmlinvalid> </u1:zoom> </u1:view> </u1:worddocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <u2:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </u2:latentstyles> </xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">‘A Roller Coaster Ride- When an IITian met a Bitsian girl’ <o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><u3:p></u3:p>Genre- Drama, fiction<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Publisher- Srishti Publishers and distributors<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Author- Saumil Shrivastava<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Pages- 216<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><u3:p></u3:p><u3:p></u3:p>Debut author Saumil Shrivastava an IITian from Mumbai is basically from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Raipur</st1:place></st1:city> Chhattisgarh and currently settled in Gurgaon. The novel Roller Coaster is based on a fiction that connects to the lifestyle of maximum of the youths today, so in a way it is a fiction based on non-fiction. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Story walks back to review Maddy’s genuinely roller coaster ride with lots of jerks in his career, friends and love life in particular. Maddy the focal character is an IITian who after a bunch of struggle reaches Gurgaon with a good corporate job in hand. A few poky yet lively and virtuous friends/colleagues/flat mates altogether made his life disquieting and heartening as well. Maddy had this foolish habit of chatting and meeting with strange girls on the cost of ignoring his enjoyment with friends. But no sooner he met with his dream girl Divya (in the office, life for him completely changed everlastingly, for good or bad…find it out in the novel.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Oh! And the place H93 where Maddy stayed with his friends and the celebrity cook plays a significant role in the novel with frequent reminders. Specially the kind of sudden undesired hindrances that popped up every now and then attaches the reader to the main character’s life.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Every time you finish a page of this book, it creates curiosity for what would happen next to Maddy or how he would deal with the unforeseen trouble. So, it proved to be a perfect page turner for all those who feel connected in someway to this novel. And the blend of different kind of characters like Harsha, Satya, Pooja etc stages a link with real life encounters in almost everyone’s life.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Saumil’s novel definitely conveys an important message to the most worrisome problem of youngster’s i.e love and career. It clearly suggests you to balance things wisely and how to shrug off unwanted depression by boozing and fagging out with friends. Though the novel targets towards the lifestyle of core youth but then who grows old without crossing this critical bridge of adolescence. Thus, Uncles and Aunties, Roller Coaster is a nice excuse to peep into your youthful past. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.25in;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <u3:p></u3:p><u3:p></u3:p><u3:p></u3:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <u3:p></u3:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <u3:p></u3:p><u3:p></u3:p><u3:p></u3:p>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-69365193991233017872010-08-15T11:06:00.000-07:002010-08-27T04:36:24.287-07:00Peepli Live…Ofcourse<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TGkcr5fa5YI/AAAAAAAAAFk/nzc0CAeNw_Q/s1600/PeepliLive.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; 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margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(51, 204, 204);" lang="EN-GB">People, Politics and 'Media- The Greatest Tragedy of India'</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(153, 51, 102);" lang="EN-GB"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">You must watch this film, not for how good is the cinematography or direction or the dialogues (it's more of slangs to be better) but for how and why the Media is loosing it- the faith, interest, dignity, honour and truism it had been carrying and gaining since it became the fourth pillar of our democracy, the ‘Prajatantra’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Prajatantra in English is democracy means classlessness, equality and freedom that has now become an excuse to misuse the power of the unethicals.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Movie narrates how the news becomes news, how small news in a small newspaper becomes breaking news in all the TV channels and then how it is shaped/cooked/sensationalised and manipulated as per the requirement. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(51, 204, 204);" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>Mumbai teri jaan</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">I remember when I was in Mumbai as an intern to a news channel around 3 years ago…I had this urge to join any TV channel asap to atleast get a break and then flourish. I used to dream and imagine the expression on my parent’s face when they would watch me on the television. Suddenly I got an opportunity to cover Sajnay Dutt’s Tada case when thankfully the chaos there made me realise electronic media isn’t my cup of tea and then Bollywood’s biggest of all Abhi-Ash wedding coverage made me make my decision iron strong. They look beautiful just on screen but honestly I felt like a Dog for the first time standing at Bachchan’s gate in scorching heat for hours and have nothing much to report except for the decorations and the names of guests arriving! Then the stupidity of reporters saying “Sthiti abhi itni dardnak (WHAT?) nahi hui hai ki Amitabh ko police force ki zarurat pade, aap dekh sakte hain darwaze pe jo gende phool ki mala lagi hui hai wo (phalane) dukaan se ayi hai lagta hai) !!!! huh!! I thought if I will just have to blabber about everything that’s of least concern but the news and then exaggerate for nothing then….should I…?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">Then arrived Abhishek on a horse and suddenly the crowd turned crazy running on road to touch and see him. Police force started thrashing even the media persons in confusion, I have no other option than showing my college identity card (no press card was given to interns) and escape to a corner. Here I am trying to explain that things are not all that sophisticated and polished as they are portrayed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(51, 204, 204);" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>And Peepli Live shows it- the truth half said. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">I tried to watch the movie not as a mediaperson, just an audience who waited for quality movie to garbage the thoughts of idiotic and fictional movies in the dump yard behind my brain. The hyperbole of electronic media in the movie scared the poor farmer to move!! I mean the media was behind his back even to the field to check the colour of his excreta! For God’s sake!! But yes, this is what the media is actually doing. Digging stories from garbage and dead graveyards. The farmer then disappointedly disappeared till the channels wale declared him dead..lol <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(51, 204, 204);" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>I say…</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">No sooner I turn on the news channel, my mood turns off, my conscience abuse me for encouraging their TRPs and I decide to blog yet another post. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB">It disturbs me because I feel that I belong to it and it belongs to each nerve of me now. The time isn’t too far when people would stop appreciating and believing us, we probably don’t understand the fact that we exist exclusively on their BELIEF, and we are betraying that belief by CREATING STORIES. This film has been made to convey a message not about farmers, village, illiterates or politicians but Our Media whom we believe what they show. And saddest part is media thinks, “Hum wahi dikha rahe hain jo Public dekhna chahti hai”. C’mon kuch aur dikha kar to dekho guys…something substantial? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><u1:p></u1:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>I hereby conclude in a poignant tone that electronic media depicts the saddest picture of Journalism among all its streams of Print, TV, Radio and Web. In my opinion Media has become the Greatest Tragedy of <st1:country-region style="font-family: georgia;" st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> and would soon become in your opinion too.</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 102); font-weight: bold;font-family:Garamond;" lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></span><b style=""><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 102);font-family:Garamond;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b style=""><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 102);font-family:Garamond;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-81485812950800526852010-08-14T09:32:00.000-07:002010-08-26T01:18:47.086-07:00Saare Jahan Se Acha..Ye Tiranga Humara…<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THYhwC8AhGI/AAAAAAAAAGE/azDowy2gVpo/s1600/r168602_629756.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/THYhwC8AhGI/AAAAAAAAAGE/azDowy2gVpo/s320/r168602_629756.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509628303440381026" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if !mso]> <style> v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} </style> <![endif]--><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" 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<u2:useasianbreakrules/> <u2:dontgrowautofit/> <u2:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</u2:browserlevel> </u2:compatibility> </u2:alwaysshowplaceholdertext> </u2:ignoremixedcontent> </u2:saveifxmlinvalid> </u2:zoom> </u2:view> </u2:worddocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <u3:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </u3:latentstyles> </xml><![endif]--> <h1 style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: blue; font-weight: normal;">My <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>, My People and My Flag</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p><u1:p></u1:p>"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region> will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new…<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:place></st1:country-region> discovers herself again." </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: right;" face="georgia" align="right"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB">- Jawaharlal Nehru<br />(on Indian Independence Day, 1947) </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: blue;" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p><u1:p></u1:p>“When in despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and <a href="http://living.oneindia.in/kids/short-stories/2008/mahatma-gandhi-childhood-story-060808.html" target="undefined"><span style="text-decoration: none;">love <span style="display: none;"><u4:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" spt="75" preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"><u4:stroke joinstyle="miter"><u4:formulas><u4:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"><u4:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"><u4:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"><u4:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"><u4:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"><u4:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"><u4:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"><u4:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"><u4:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"><u4:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"><u4:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"><u4:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:f></u4:formulas><u4:path extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" connecttype="rect"><u1:lock ext="edit" aspectratio="t"></u1:lock></u4:path></u4:stroke></u4:shapetype><u4:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style=""><u4:imagedata src="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_image001.gif" href="http://kona.kontera.com/javascript/lib/imgs/grey_loader.gif"></u4:imagedata></u4:shape><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" spt="75" preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:formulas> <v:path extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" connecttype="rect"> <o:lock ext="edit" aspectratio="t"> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" href="http://living.oneindia.in/kids/short-stories/2008/mahatma-gandhi-childhood-story-060808.html" target="&quot;undefined&quot;" style="'width:16.5pt;height:16.5pt'" button="t"><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><span style=""><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/ccr/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" shapes="_x0000_i1025" border="0" width="22" height="22" /></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 9pt 12pt 0in; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: blue;" lang="EN-GB">have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it always". - Mahatma Gandhi</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <h1 style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime; font-weight: normal;"><u1:p></u1:p>Jai Hind! It’s me the rectangular shaped raiment divided into equal horizontal colours with a blue wheel of 24 spokes in the middle. I distinguish our <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region> from other countries. I am your very own national flag, the tricolour!!</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1> <u1:p></u1:p> <h1 style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-weight: normal;">15<sup>th</sup> August being one of the most historic days for our beloved country, when I see most of the population engaged in enjoying, performing, dancing and singing around, I would also want to confirm my presence by contributing my thoughts and feelings with you. Firstly I am overwhelmed with honour and pride to know that one of the citizens initiated to amend certain rules of [Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 and violation of flag code 2002.] After facing little opposition of FIR and complaints, he finally succeeded to announce that not only the ministers and VIPs but every Indian citizen can unfurl me with respect, honour and dignity even after 6 pm. Just one thing you need to make sure is to illuminate the surroundings or you might violate the Flag Code of Conduct. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1> <u1:p></u1:p> <h1 style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: blue; font-weight: normal;"><u1:p></u1:p>My First Look </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1> <u1:p></u1:p> <h1 style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime; font-weight: normal;">I have traveled for 63 years now since my recreation and have observed several ups and downs to grow older. I was officially adopted on July 22, 1947, a few months before <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:country-region> received independence from <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region> on August 15. It was the nationalist political party, the Indian National Congress, whose efficient members designed me after long discussions and fuming arguments. Did you know I was initially introduced on August 31, 1931 as the national flag? And I looked absolutely different then. Red colour symbolizing strength was at the bottom, saffron for victory in the middle and green at the top for boldness and enthusiasm. Eight lotuses at the top symbolized provinces of <st1:place st="on"><st1:place st="on">British India</st1:place></st1:place> and the sun and moon at the bottom represented Hindu and Muslim. Vande Mataram was inscribed in the center in Devnagari.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB">There were several changes made even after that with a Gandhi’s charkha that’s now become the blue wheel. The final and first national flag for independence was designed by Venkiah Pingali of Andra Pradesh, it was hoisted on August 16, 1947 at 8.30 am which then unfurled on August 15 since 1948. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Anyway I know that’s not much in your interest but there are ofcourse a few ecstatic and hard feelings that I want you people to know. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: blue;">Today I Complain </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <h1 style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime; font-weight: normal;">Though there were certain strict rules inscribed to express love, respect and devotion to me just like what Hindus do to their Gods, Muslim does to his Allah and other do in their respective cultural Gods. It was said that:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1> <u1:p></u1:p> <h1 style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime; font-weight: normal;">-Under this flag there is no difference between a prince and a pauper, rich and poor, man and woman. Every Indian should rise to salute the national flag. (And what do they do when there’s an urgent need to maintain peace and harmony? They run holding me in groups to discriminate between the religions and batter those who overlook me!) </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB">- The Tiranga must not be used as a drapery in any form whatsoever except in State / military funerals.<br />(Drapery? For God’s sake there are some Matajis who use me as foot-mat!!) </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB"><br />- The Tiranga must not be draped over the hood, top, sides or back of a vehicle or a train or a boat. (Dude! I am being printed on faces, as tattoos, pants etc.. No, am not being arrogant to receive full fledged respect from the citizens because I know it couldn’t be received forcefully. But I believe our constitution allows right to freedom of speech.)</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><br /><br /><span style="color: blue;">- The Tiranga must not be used or stored in such a manner as may damage or soil it.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: blue;" lang="EN-GB">(Oh Please! don’t you realise they burn me almost daily in <st1:place st="on"><st1:place st="on">Kashmir</st1:place></st1:place> or whenever and wherever some riots takes place?)<br /><br />- When the Tiranga is in a damaged or soiled condition, it may not be cast aside or disrespectfully disposed of, but shall be destroyed as a whole in private, preferably by burning or by any other method consistent with the dignity of the flag. The other proper way to destroy the Tiranga could be immersion into the Ganga/lake or buried with due respect.<br />(No, dear people I am actually being sold out least in Re1 on the street square before and on August 15 and then dusted/ stamped/ shed/ dustbin-ned and everything after that. Didn’t you realise it yet?)</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><br /><span style="color: lime;">- The Tiranga must not be used as a portion of a costume or uniform of any description. It shall not be embroidered upon cushions or handkerchiefs or printed on napkins or boxes.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime;" lang="EN-GB">(Well I was imprinted in saree of a famous sports celebrity to touch her feet with other national flags of various countries. Yes, it created quite a hullabaloo around)<br /><br />- The Tiranga must not be used in any form of advertisement nor shall an advertisement sign be fastened to the pole from which the flag is flown.<br />(Well sometimes there was too much of it to sensationalise and grip the sports star like Sachin Tendulkar who was accused of<br />sporting the flag on his cricket helmet below the BCCI emblem. He later changed it and placed the flag above BCCI emblem.) </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"><u1:p></u1:p>Dear People…</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">I, the flag of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region> feature three coloured bands. The top band is saffron [representing courage and sacrifice, the second is white representing purity and truth, and the third band is green standing for faith, fertility and chivalry.] In the middle of the flag is a blue chakra signifying growth and development.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">So, why don’t you just accept me as your national flag and not some sort of designed raiment to be draped or played and painted around? And dear people, I would be treated honourably around the world only when my own citizens would nurse me delicately. Don’t throw me away in the mud or stamp me after the day of freedom is over, because I represent you and you represent me through out the year anywhere and everywhere. Let me feel the feeling of sophistication that you tend to express but unknowingly disregard me most of the times.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: blue;">There are a few refined ways to fold and preserve me that they usually do at Wagah Border. The same is followed by the neighbouring country <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region> too. I believe the kind of discipline followed at Wagah Border could shake the soul of enemies to the core. Well, the simple ways to fold me up are:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime;" lang="EN-GB">1: Work with a partner to fold the flag of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region>. This will help you avoid having the flag touch the ground or anything else near it.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime;" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>2: Hold one end of the flag with both hands while your partner holds the other end of the flag. The stripes should face up.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: lime;" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>3: Fold the flag in half keeping the fold parallel with the stripes.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>4: Fold the flag three times in the other direction. Each of the three folds should be equal in size to the other folds.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB">5: Keep the flag of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></st1:place></st1:country-region> in a respectable place and handle with care. It should not be placed on the ground, on a table or in any other manner which might be deemed as disrespectful. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;" face="georgia"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB"><u1:p></u1:p>So, I sign off with an enthusiasm to be unfurled on all the buildings, houses and offices depicting the grace of my country and citizens today. Happy Independence Day!!</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt; text-align: justify;font-family:georgia;"><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);" lang="EN-GB"></span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 9pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-1594084340147366802010-08-08T23:20:00.000-07:002010-08-08T23:45:29.232-07:00All Indians Are Our Brothers and Sisters… Oh! C’mon...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TF-jR8_EouI/AAAAAAAAAE8/gp5s-23RGEM/s1600/images.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 284px; height: 177px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TF-jR8_EouI/AAAAAAAAAE8/gp5s-23RGEM/s320/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503296798493811426" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 102);">Recently Published:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">It was Friendship Day last Sunday…when one of the most disgraceful events took place in the capital to be etched in the hearts of sufferers for a long time. Yes, dear all, it’s a crime to celebrate the days invented by western countries, in our culturally rich capita of Chhattisgarh, Raipurl. This is the message conveyed by Dharamsena, Shivsena, Bajrang Dal and more groups like those through the turmoil they created.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 153, 255);">The friendship day chaos</span><br /><br />What would have been ‘their’ reaction to find ‘their’ sister celebrating friendship day with her friend or whatsoever in that park? Would it be the same? Would ‘they’ vanquish, trample and kick the girl in public place pouring oil and colouring her face with grease in front of the camera!! Not at all… ‘they’ couldn’t even dream of doing it rather, ‘they’ would break the bones of people daring to insult ‘their’ sister. Here the ‘they’ and ‘their’ quoted because it refers to ‘them’. The (un)respectable activists belonging to Bajrang Dal and Dharamsena etc, who created mess, filth and chaos on their sin-to-celebrate Friendship Day .<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 153, 255);">Why don’t you mind your own business!</span><br />A group of 12-15 goons (better to term goons instead of activists) of what they call is Bajrang Dal, Dharam Sena and Shiv Sena, valiantly rushes into several parks and restaurants shamelessly exhibiting audacity, stripping purity out of love and friendship. Molesting and beating the guys might be in their routine but the cheap act of KICKING, MISBEHAVING, ABUSING and HARASSING GIRLS proved that they aren’t gender biased but the one for all ‘beasts’. Irrespective of gender discrimination they hit and insult anyone assuming it as their ‘Param Dharma’ that too on camera and in presence of Police force! Are those goons to decide what’s and where’s for the citizens? They call themselves the guards of society and culture. So we should assume that their culture allows them to thrash females on the name of saving the culture? No way, they actually want to make spaces on cover pages of all the newspapers and the media wilfully make their wish come true. They suddenly disappear when society really needs voice for justice then why to abruptly turn up out of the blue on the special days?<br />The offence of those innocent people was just that they risked life to involve into an anti-festival called friendship day.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 153, 255);">Pillars of Democracy</span><br />Guessing the girls’ state of mind would be something out of question but here the gun points towards the important pillars of democracy that were present on spot in attire of human beings. Do we need to name them here?<br />The Police force present on the spot muted themselves when the maliciously mischievous goons pranced in, in the area. Whatever would be the reason of their powerlessness. Then comes ‘the king’ of Indian constituency- ‘Our Media’ with highest TRP creating turmoil and right to news on petty incidents every now and then. By god’s disgrace they don’t even realise what they are doing, forgetting their prime duty as a human to report about the incident or atleast try to save the poor girl from beatings. But they don’t forget to sensationalise/ endlessly repeat the clippings and scream about the shamelessness of people present at the incident.<br />Even the women helpline number- the Rajdhani mahila police, aapki seva mai tatpar couldn’t show its worth. Now who would believe you Mam Mahila Police?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 153, 255);">Better late than never</span><br />Surprisingly after undesirable pregnant pauses only, the villains were detained the next day. Long after the tormented females were pictured in all the local newspapers, national news channels and web portals. When several women associations yelled for justice, voice was raised in the Vidhan Sabha monsoon session, the authority woke up from deep sleep and detained a few sena people. But the regard and esteem that accompanied those girls have divorced them to be looked upon with dishonour wherever they walk.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 153, 255);">Shameful! Whole country is talking about you</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"># Nihar Nayak:</span> Dude, open your eyes Girls were beaten up, kicked and their faces were blackened. Hell bajarang dal..main reason is that they are uneducated, unemployed, unsuccessful &amp; don't want to walk with time...ban the bajarang dal...the killer of mother INDIA..<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"># Meenakshi Choudhary: </span>They should be slapped and kicked by those girls in front of public. There are lots of ways to convey message, this is not the way to protect Hindu religion. It depends on individual whether he/she wants to celebrate or not, who gave them right to misbehave like this?<br />“Kya saza sunai jaye? Break the bones or should you the ‘moral sena people’ served with the same treatment?”<br />More than 500 responses like these are blinking on various websites criticising the act happened here.<br />Almost same episodes of assaulting and beating girls in public places unnecessarily, have taken place in the recent years. Mangalore pub incident in 2009, Meerut police attacked innocent girls sitting in parks in 2005, girl stripped and insulted in Mumbai in 2007 and many other events like these keep disturbing the nobility and honour of Indian girls followed by the impotent yet pregnant pauses…<br />Time to take the sword in your hand girls and REACT to the beasts from poor culture.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-15159122446614298542010-08-05T03:03:00.000-07:002010-08-07T08:46:23.529-07:00The Silent Spectator<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFqOOtEtUUI/AAAAAAAAAEs/NkHmim7cUd8/s1600/title3t432x293.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 217px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFqOOtEtUUI/AAAAAAAAAEs/NkHmim7cUd8/s320/title3t432x293.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501866278055137602" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFqOOWJI05I/AAAAAAAAAEk/qQ1b91o7qIU/s1600/tailor.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFqOOWJI05I/AAAAAAAAAEk/qQ1b91o7qIU/s320/tailor.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501866271899702162" /></a><br /><br />This isn't actually a post but an article published in Central Chronicle...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">When there is a story teller sitting beside you to narrate things and stuff, effort gets easier penning it down on a sheet of paper. <br />Narrator here is someone very close to me, and through the following story wishes to baygon spray the bugs of regret running within his body since years. "It is from my childhood days that turned into younger days and it's hard to believe that I have grown mature with this guilt, being of no help to the poor tailor but sympathetic," he says.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Tailor’s Tale<br /></span> "Riding bicycle as the newest birthday gift for growing to a 12 year old naughty kid, I was enjoying the smell of breeze when I first saw him. An ordinary man with a thread in his mouth was likely the first multi-tasking creature I saw in my then lifetime. Gadgeted with a table like sewing machine, his hands and legs were parallely working, I wondered how Near to him seated a lady whom I later discovered as his wife, who was busy untangling the tangled load of clothes and pieces. She was constantly mumbling something that I couldn’t hear but she looked annoyed, possibly on the tailor who was absolutely unreactive to everything she said. Actually the khrr..khrr..khrr..sound of machine embracing wife’s mumbles didn’t really allow them to reach tailor’s ears. Though he was poor but he had all the essential equipments that a tailor must have, his ear had a blue chalk tucked behind and a measuring tape was hanging around his neck and whenever his hands rubbed on machine’s wheel to stop and adjust the cloth, it ached me imagining his rough hands getting scratched over the wheels.<br /> They lived in a small rented house that exposed the tailor’s shop from outer view. It soon became a regular sight for me on the way to school but never an unusual one because it was fun to see the tailor struggling with clothes, changing needles and threads. As a kid it was quite astonishing to see a large piece of cloth being converted into a shape of shirt. If I look back from now, what I didn't notice was his sincerity towards work that never allowed him to notice a guy who usually stood by his shop to watch him. <br />In a way it relieved me because I felt comfortable to watch him being unnoticed. Neither I nor the tailor knew what was coming. One day he was thrashed out of the rented house with his belongings due to unpaid rent. He was quite as stone and unresponsive as if politely saying “Yes, I agree that it’s my fault as I haven’t paid the amount and here I stand bowing my head to survive as God wants me to.” On the contrary his wife seemed highly furious spitting out words of dishonour towards the haughty landlord who spectacularly showed arrogant superiority to disdain the unworthy. She was crying her heart out while collecting her belongings scattered on the road. “Hum kahan jaenge, arey samaan to mat phek H*******r. Uparwala kabhi maaf nahi karega, garib admi ko satata hai.” she screamed. I watched standing at a corner, the softer side of me asked to try to rescue them and the harder one pulled me suggesting that I would be awfully nosy. <br /><br />I knew the summer season is ending and rains would make their roofless life, impossible to survive. Though I wasn’t related to them in any way but the human within me was clinging to tailor’s life. Now I started visiting his place more frequently, twice a day only to be a mute spectator. For next few days they managed to cover the heap of dwellings with black tarpaulin sheet and slept, ate, worked and lived roofless on the narrow passage beside the rented house. I heard her wife fuming again to the passing landlord “Road se toh koi nahi bhaga sakta hume.” <br /><br />Ofcourse not, within a week as the rains arrived they secured themselves in a three by three metre of space under a tarpaulin sheet tied to five bamboo-like sticks. The fifth one stood in the centre preventing the rain water to accumulate and ruin the self-imposed house. <br />While lying on my comfy bed I imagined the couple with their knees pulled up to chin trying to be cozily warm in the rain outside and I pulled up my blanket to shy away from the burning guilt within. What appealed me most about the tailor was he looked so passive about whatever is happening around him or to his life, absolutely unparticipative. As if only thing he was concerned about was, stitching. He worked like he doesn’t need money, silent like he has never been hurt and lived like no one was watching. But I was…<br /><br />Gradually the tarpaulin sheet was replaced by a square shaped tin that needed no fifth stick in centre to disturb the ambience of house. “Actually the sheet got holes on several parts that drenched them last night,” I overheard a group of local people chatting. To me it seemed to be his first step towards progress and I found myself imagining him in a bricked house one day after he has earned good sum of money. <br />I remember the last time I saw him before leaving the town for further studies, he was operating the sewing machine again to convert the cloth to shirt, sitting at the door of his ‘bricked’ but ‘cement-less’ house. The wife still mumbling, what, I couldn’t hear. Regretting to imagine just a bricked house and not the complete one, I left and never returned to that place until yesterday. No, he isn’t there. “Mysteriously left the place one night,” said the landlord who has now become the tailor of that area. Insatiate, I enquired from a beggar across the road and there lied the truth to satisfy me “Saheb, he was beaten badly by some ‘gundas’ and I know who sent them”, winked beggar grinning. “When his wife was assaulted by the ‘gundas’, the agitated tailor surprised everyone with his defensive stunt but got badly wounded. And then he left the place that night limping without a word of complains.” …..period.<br /><br />Now, looking back to the time, a vague feeling convinces me that I couldn’t be of any help to the tailor perhaps because as a kid I didn’t know the right way to avail him with resources but I was quite sensitive and empathetic that is why it keeps coming back to mind even after years in one form or the other because the fittest continued surviving. <br />“It’s true that story of a poor men’s life is written on his body in a sharp pen but the only relief that I can give to the poor tailor in an indirect way is this, writing his life on paper and not his body,” narrator concludes. <br /></span>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-71611208691166330562010-08-05T01:24:00.000-07:002010-08-05T01:47:39.590-07:00Faith-Healing Superstitions Hogging On Kids<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFp6PswaD2I/AAAAAAAAAEc/5jcWu92Tc3Y/s1600/S6.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFp6PswaD2I/AAAAAAAAAEc/5jcWu92Tc3Y/s320/S6.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5501844304917303138" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">1. W<span style="font-weight:bold;">ould you ever prefer to follow a 500 year old belief that asks you to throw your infant into a well from 50 ft, for a holy dip and protecting him from all disabilities? You might not, but people of Sangli, Maharashtra and many other places have been following this inhuman tradition since years, eager to gift a healthy life to their kids. Dangling and tossing the grieving kid down in the water. <br />2. Pray for a child at Baba Sheikh Umar Saheb Dargah in Musti village in Solapur, Maharashtra and the couple will have to follow a strange custom after the child has born. Throw the child from a considerable height onto a sheet held by devotees and the child is blessed with good health! Isn’t that easy? They claim that the tradition wouldn’t harm the child in anyway. Might be. Might be not. I wonder how the parents turn a blind eye to their infant’s fear and a deaf ear to their distraught screams. The heart wrenching scene of an unprotected child in the air gives Goosebumps and begs to legally ban this bizarre ritual.</span> </span> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Pity on their belief: the religion would be destroyed if they destroy superstition. Lately the word superstition couldn’t be imagined without the inverted commas because ‘superstition’ for one, is ‘religion’ for the other. Call it a supernatural force or the extra human force for positive or negative intervention in their life, superstition dominates almost all divisions of the society irrespective of illiterates and literates, wise and fools, rich and poor, young and adult. It’s an emergency call for government to intervene as it strongly challenges our sensibility.<br />Soul, Media and the Law <br />Soul budging incident of children being beaten up by some pseudo babas and gurus under a delusion that it would treat the kid, fills us with pity towards those children. Then the media who bothers to break the news: how the hot milk and kheer are poured on an infant in disguise of tradition or superstition which they script as ‘marmic anubhav’. But do they trouble themselves to check if any casualties have taken place or what happens to the child after the hollow tradition is accomplished? <br />“Throwing a child from height or battering to treat them in the name of tradition doesn’t prove to be legal at all. If the human rights commission is informed about such inhuman activities, then the cognisance is forwarded to the concerned authorities for necessary actions,” quotes Manish Mishra, Press Officer, Chhattisgarh State Human Rights Commission.<br />Noticeably, actions are taken only after the incident has crossed all borders of humanity. Like the case of childless couple in Hingoli village sacrificed rather killed five kids on the behest of a tantrik. Killing eleven kids would bless them with a baby boy, he assured the couple. Shielded by superstition, the couple went about poisoning children and buried the bodies in the village. But were trapped after killing five innocent children, though it was quite late for parents who lost their kids.<br />State Affairs<br />Even Chhattisgarh isn’t in the rear, people here irresistibly follow the superstitious practices of black magic, witch craft, tantra-mantra, animal sacrifice and now children sacrifice! And because a child couldn’t be sacrificed in case of ‘ang-bhang’ (physical abnormality) people in Bastar region slice off an organ of their child. Then they feel quite secure that their mutilated child wouldn’t be kidnapped and sacrificed. What a ‘sacrifice’! Isn’t this the irony side of inhumanity?<br />Another strange tradition is giving strange names to the children with a belief to protect them from evils and death! Names that has no meaning or the disapproving ones like Pakri (fakir), Pichai (beggar), Tamta, Bhatuiya, Chirri, Farra, Bhegga etc.. are given to children. I recently met a kid called Bhakoli, when asked the meaning of his name he said “nai maloom” “Mummy ne rakha kyunki mere do bade bhai Ajay aur Shyam mar gaye na”!!!! The awful reply from a six year old kid forced me to talk to his parents. “We just want to save our child from evil and death, two of our children have already died and we are told that a name without meaning would gift life to Bhakoli,” they said. <br />But on the cost of troubling the child’s psychology? <br />Warns the Psychologist<br />“The harsh treatment and incidents affect the subconscious mind of the child that further connects to consciousness in later stage of life. This is when child behaves with intense aversion towards his parents and start hating them,” warns Dr Maya Verma, a Child Psychologist in Raipur. She said that the bad experiences of life trap the raw mind of child that grows injurious till the adolescence, resulting in offensive behaviour towards the parents. <br />Call for Awareness<br />If something on the positive node is to be done then it’s awareness. Campaigning, conducting workshops, seminars, educating people and counseling are the measures that could bring improvement if not changes. Being on the stricter side severe punishment should be imposed against the superstition practices specially which claims injury and life. On spot detention is the need of hour that could create fear in the minds of people before they plan to throw their child into a well. <br />They need blessings from mind not the uncanny power.</span><br />---------------Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-72177569137350954002010-07-30T04:04:00.000-07:002010-07-30T09:11:19.531-07:00Things I want to do and I don’t<span style="font-weight:bold;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFK4gYz_y1I/AAAAAAAAAEU/TG_tNSXbdCo/s1600/child_play-1280x800.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFK4gYz_y1I/AAAAAAAAAEU/TG_tNSXbdCo/s320/child_play-1280x800.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499660961528662866" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;"><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">There are endless things that I have already done I always wanted to and there are still more…Human Wants you see…Anyway this is self analysis about things I want to do and also those I don’t want to do. Posting them here would remind me when I have to move and to stop…Just sharing!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Want to do…</span><br />- Want to be an optimistic person forever.<br />- Want to be a real good human being regardless of relationships, just a Good Human.<br />- Want to visit Wagah Border to feel the true essence of patriotism.<br />- Want India- Pakistan to reunite.<br />- Want to drive a truck atleast once.<br />- Want to become techno-friendly…far from techno embarrassment.<br />- Want to fly a kite , nope never did it.<br />- Want to learn dancing  I can’t dance but move on Punjabbi music.<br />- I wish my name would have been ‘Krushna’.<br />- If at all I get a next birth, I want to be a SARDAR and fight for the country.<br />- Want to write a book, sensible one, on an issue?<br />- Want atleast one trip to abroad, anywhere which is naturally beautiful.<br />- Want to visit a village every two months.<br />- Want to become a great cook some day.<br />- Want all useless people to get rid of me ASAP.<br />- Want to interview Kiran Bedi and Ruskin Bond. <br />- Want to keep WRITING….<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Don't want to do…</span><br />- I don't want to be a pessimist.<br />- Don't want to betray anyone.<br />- Don't want to be grammatically incorrect, it's so embarrassing.<br />- Don’t want to have any kind of pets EVER.<br />- Don’t want to be a latecomer.<br />- Don’t want to be friend with new people anymore.<br />- Don't want to be remembered like Gandhi and others. <br />- Don't want to lose my attitude, my originality though it pricks many.<br />- Don’t want to embarrass others due to their drawbacks.<br />- Don’t want to stop WRITING…</span><br /></span></span></span>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-82050352804263354752010-07-29T23:04:00.000-07:002010-07-29T23:05:55.578-07:00Book Review: Train to Pakistan<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFJrnBdPcJI/AAAAAAAAAEM/J2d5uIL-9Zo/s1600/pakistan_train_01.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFJrnBdPcJI/AAAAAAAAAEM/J2d5uIL-9Zo/s320/pakistan_train_01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499576413122949266" /></a><br />From The Book Shelf<br /><br />Comment: Breathtakingly superb<br />Genre- classic fiction<br />Pages:181<br /><br /><br /><br />A story that connects each Indian and Pakistani to its past to feel that we weren’t always the way we are now. A confrontation which couldn’t be undone, the brunt of which India and Pakistan is still facing. ‘The Partition’. <br />The author’s very debut novel though written in the year 1956 still carries credence enough to stand and contest the latest bestselling novels of the recent years. In the beginning it depicts an interesting and peaceful picture of a rural place in the borders of Punjab and Pakistan called Mano Majra that would compel today’s reader wondering on the survival of ancient people in absence of mere resources like ‘watch’. People of Mano Majra actually depended on the morning and evening trains to sleep, wake and eat, trains were the time-tellers to them.<br />The story gives an idea that it’s been written with a focus to highlight the turbulent situation during partition but featuring the lifestyle of Mano Majra and a tiny love story in the backdrop keeps balm-ing the painful wounds both to the writer and reader as well. <br /><br />Khushwant Singh in this book reveals the unerasable outbreak of our country’s history that’s haunting both India and Pakistan till date. With millions of men killed, women raped and children burnt, it’s been more than half a century old now. Thus, it carries an ability to move every patriotic nerve of the country lovers.<br />His powerful writing doesn’t allow the reader to ponder over the gory inhuman incidents of murder and slaughter for a long time as the mood of the story took sudden turns to bring back the reader’s composure.<br /><br />The presumably highlighted characters like Lalaji the Hindu moneylender, Juggat Singh alias Jugga one of the notorious elements mostly in and out of the prison, the Muslim priest and the Magistrate cum Deputy Commissioner Hukum Chand, simple priest of Sikh temple, Iqbal, the communist party worker whose religion remained disclosed till the end, none of them proved to be a monopolist. Rather played acceptably till the end while Jugga’s strong dialogue delivery, aggressiveness, mood swings and indigenousness in the end give him a saviour’s title. <br /><br />Khushwant Singh sketches his characters with a sure and steady hand.<br />Train to Pakistan highlights the political complications after sudden taste of independence while the author made sure not to be judgemental over the people behind mass murders, rapes, robbery and violence, he didn’t blame anyone. Instead he emphasised on those innocent people who were absolutely ignorant of what’s and why’s of the happenings, while they were brutally killed or separated from their own people for reasons they didn’t knew, they were bewildered, victimised and torn apart. Things change for the worse when an east-bound train makes an unscheduled stop at Mano Majra, the wagons full of corpses. The most heart-rending passage in the book is when the government makes the decision to transport all the Muslim families from Mano Majra to Pakistan. <br />It’s a must read for every Indian and Pakistani to know the hard truth of the begged independence away from just the politics, Britishers, Gandhi and Nehru gaatha. This gimmick book has been reprinted and translated into many languages since its publication in 1956. Another reason for its publicity was also the author’s boldness and exposed writing in terms of the women characters including a little teenage girl in the story. Compared to the conservative era of 1950s, it’s considered as an intrepidly courageous step in the world of writing for Indian writers and readers.<br />Khushwant Singh since then went on to become a famously truculent, humorous, and eccentric columnist and editor, but this is one book infused with his compassion and humanity or say inhumanity. <br />---------------------Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-86628224896514211242010-07-29T23:02:00.000-07:002010-07-29T23:04:36.223-07:00Book REview: The Kite Runner<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFJrbHiOoCI/AAAAAAAAAEE/e26D01Pq-K0/s1600/Kite+runner.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 208px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TFJrbHiOoCI/AAAAAAAAAEE/e26D01Pq-K0/s320/Kite+runner.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499576208596049954" /></a><br />From The Book Shelf<br /><br />Book: The Kite Runner<br />Author: Khaled Hosseini<br />Genre: Fiction<br />Publisher: Riverhead Books<br />Pages: 336 pages<br /><br />An Afgan-American author Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel The Kite Runner released in 2003 is something to be curled upon. An amazingly powerful book speaking the stories of wounded part of the world, Afganistan. The horrifying realities of war, inhumanity in the caste system between Sunni and Shia’s Muslims and the chemistry between a loyal and disloyal friend makes it a perfect page turner. Precisely this book is about life, society, friendship, betrayal, guilt, love and Afganistan.<br />Kid Amir belonging to a culturally and luxuriously rich Pashtun business family has Hassan a lower caste Hazara boy as his taken for granted pal whose father is an age old servant at Amir’s bunglow.<br />The story starts with a phone call to a grown-up Amir from his late father’s old friend Rahim Khan. This call gives him a chance to revive his life of betrayal and guilt he has been carrying since childhood. A flashback is then followed with friendship between Amir and Hassan where Amir secretly envies him due to his father’s affection for Hassan while the latter loves him unconditionally and says ‘for you a thousand times over’ whenever his friend asks him something.<br />The powerful expressions in sentences could take the readers on a flight to Afganistan allowing them to visualise the happenings. The story takes a required U-turn with Amir’s betrayal that forcefully departs Hassan from his dear friend forever. Actually devoted Hassan was brutally beaten and raped by a group of Pashtun bullies when he was on his way with Amir’s last cut kite in the local kite-flying tournament. Where Hassan played unbreakably loyal, Amir didn’t turn up to rescue his friend inspite of being an eye-witness of the piteous incident. Novel’s name suggests Hassan’s skillful quality of knowing where the kite would fall, it was assumed that perhaps he follows the kite’s shadow and reaches the landing place before the kite. <br />Hosseini describes further story as if he was Amir, followed with the unwanted departure of Hassan and his father Ali, war in Kabul, refuge to Pakistan and then America, Amir falling in love with a beautiful girl Soraya and healing the scar of guilt by adopting Hassan’s orphaned son Sohrab. It was a perilous task for him to free Hassan’s son from violent Talibanis’ grip. <br />Though The Kite Runner runs around Amir’s life but leaves Hassan’s mark in reader’s mind through out. The author has perfectly utilised the characters in the story to strongly portray the Afgan history from the non-violent 70’s to ugly truth of Taliban taking over in 90’s. <br />The story twists many times in between surprising the reader as well as Amir. The beauty of writing lays in The Kite Runner which is definitely addictive and not a topsy-turvy. <br />The book is heartbreakingly moving right from the start. In the end reserved and unfriendly Sohrab only shows a smile to as he runs the kite for Sohrab, saying, "For you, a thousand times over."<br />The Denver Post, a daily in US says The Kite Runner "ranks among the best-written and provocative stories of the year so far." The book has also been conceptualised into a motion picture in Dari language with the subtitles in English.<br />----Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-57616331493921369012010-07-05T10:36:00.000-07:002010-07-05T10:45:14.996-07:00Casual events n blah…<strong>Latest updates from today till last:</strong><br /><br />~ Went to a nearby village for a story, didn’t get a very interesting scoop though but the air, energy, greenery, chai-samose and ofcourse the villagers added a new life in me- One time experience. Aha!!<br />*****<br /><br />~ Created an online ‘Personal Diary’ not for public ;) <br />(I can reveal atleast about maintaining one)<br />*****<br /><br />~ Read ‘Train to Pakistan’ by Khushwant Singh- A powerful book with lots of emotions served. It made me wonder about the existing tension at the time of partition. Wept after reading it.<br />*****<br /><br />~ India won Asia Cup, I danced on the couch.<br />*****<br /><br />~ Wrote an article on same sex marriage that encouraged office colleagues to whisper behind me. They whispered: revealed vishwasniya sources. Actually the definition of 'bold topics' is completely different here. I told you!<br />*****<br /><br />~ Watched Kites, Houseful, I hate Luv storys, Raavan, Mr and Mrs Mehta (yucks, left the theatre before interval) Raajneeti. (Duh! Too much of movie watching?) All were disaster except Raajneeti. I loved Arjun Rampal and the flow of movie, gave 4 stars in the movie review  While Raavan was just ok.<br />*****<br />~ Finally got the nerve to learning Facebook!! Yeah! Quite regular now, still trying to get along and finding it good. Not tried the funny games yet. And I have decided to keep away from them.<br />*****<br />~ Undergoing process of de-addiction-> idiotic movies, Maggi my love (somewhere I know it’s not possible), impulsiveness, freaking out aimlessly, unconstructive talks like gossiping, SMSing, just being in myself, expectations, last but not the least, friends…well will explain ‘why’ later, it needs another individual post.<br />*****<br />~ Hey! Learnt to play Poolgame  yayyy!! Quite late isn’t? Tell you the stick was too heavy for me to hold but great experience. <br />*****<br />~ Oh! Went to this new mall where they have ‘hauntplex’, those like horror houses filled with darkness and weird people wearing ghost masks trying their best to scare you. Precisely, it was hilarious and didn’t scare a cell of mine. Rs 100 wasted.<br />*****<br /><strong>Lately Discovered</strong><br />~ He likes short hair on him (that I don’t like) and likes long hair on me (that I too like).<br />~ He doesn’t like to wear watches or anything in his hands. No point in buying bracelets or expensive watches. Nva mind!<br />~ He likes blue, weirdly all shades hehe…<br />~ His favourite actor is Amir Khan and Priyanka Chopra.<br />~ He has an instinct that traps the liars.<br />~ He is a good informer in terms of being around a Journalist (that’s Me).<br /><br />As of now, enough. Soon with something new :)<br /><br />Cheers!!Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-44251204808479204972010-06-10T23:18:00.000-07:002010-06-11T08:23:35.410-07:00The Kolkatian Breed, Oouchh! They bite…<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TBHWE1BG-HI/AAAAAAAAAD0/rj4dWPvqufw/s1600/phoca_thumb_l_victoria+palace+of+kolkata.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 142px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/TBHWE1BG-HI/AAAAAAAAAD0/rj4dWPvqufw/s320/phoca_thumb_l_victoria+palace+of+kolkata.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481397599926155378" /></a><br /><br /><br />Yep! Am back from the city of joy, science museums, Victoria Palace, first metro trains, trams and many more- The Kolkata. Though it seems to be an ancient place while driving through Howrah bridge and the connected streets but this place also has its metropolitan look once you develop interest to visit places like Park Street and Salt Lake.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Things I liked</span><br />I would say it’s a perfect destination for women who carry special hormone of that of a shopaholic. That place has every, really every possible thing a woman could imagine to stash into her wardrobe, bathroom, dressing room, kitchen, lawn, home, car and just anything. And the best part is you get them almost in all possible prices you imagine you can afford! Consequently its appealing, motivating and attractive market didn’t urge me to escape from there unlike all the markets in Raipur. (I am a big time shop-phobic) Although being a girl, it’s strange that I resist it, I rather prefer aimless shopping…picking up things like that only. <br />Oh! The restaurants there, are simply wowiee!! Every time I visit Kolkata, there’s a new restaurant I try to explore. Where my focal concentration would be ambience not the food, I feel the interiors and décor to be absolutely exclusive and unique. I went to Barbeque this time, a luxuriously expensive and yum experience.<br /><strong>Better than worse</strong><br />I liked one thing that I haven’t found so widely in the places I have visited till date. The Hospitality. May it be a ‘paanwala’, ‘bhelwala’, or any other street vendor or a service provider. They serve absolutely ‘Dil Se’, they assure you best service and are dedicate din their work to fulfil customer’s satisfaction. ‘Jabaan ki value hai boss’ bol dia matlab hoga…I liked that spirit. <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Things I Didn’t…</span><br />Okay! To ensure you, the banner of this post doesn’t go with me or the positive aspects of that place it’s just to highlight the characteristics of citizens of Kolkata. ‘Just to highlight’ because it would be too exhausting to get into the deep and Explain them, it’s endless. They can’t be described so easily, just a try. And it’s basically about the higher class Marwari crowd there so, no offenses with others please…<br /><br />I gathered courage to write them here because I have been analysing them since years now, I was eight when my sister was married off to Kolkata then I was sixteen when another flew there happily. The frequent but permanent changes were good for them to survive in the metropolitan place like Kol. <br />And that gave birth to a perfect Kolkatian breed or say ‘avatar’! After their kids were brought to that beautiful world of Hippocrates, diplomatic rich and flaunt crowd. My pensive nerve told me that Kolkata is less about Bengalis and fishes and more about Marwaris and riches. First most annoying thing of this breed is, the moment they meet you, regardless of gender discrimination they behave like Maharajas who have just been dismounted from an Arabic horse! Almost everyone has got a big mouth there, even kids, too outspoken to be called kids, too matured to be innocent. If richer than the other one they can build a Tajmahal of flaunting words. Irritatingly they don’t give you a chance to describe what interests you because they are too busy graciously praising themselves.<br /><br />Truly the day I reach there, I feel like a mouse who desperately searches for a hole to rest, hide and keep away from chauvinism. The moonless sky reveals the story of lifelessness there. I would say Raipur is far better than that place. Yes, dear friends it’s me who’s saying this. They say ‘Life is a wonderful servant but a terrible master’, accurately proved here. They (whom all I have met there) are all faithful servants of mind. There’s not a single mark of spirituality or truthfulness but there’s a desert of footsteps of materialism. People there do not care for how much you know until they know how much you have…in terms of materialism. The smirk on their faces invites you to a friendly talk and later you discover that the smirk was a cooker that needed a whistle to blow the pressure. And you were the whistle! (grin) <br />The heights of greediness, screams of flashiness, lowest temperature of air conditioner cars/rooms, competition between the filthy rich and filthier rich and no vacancy for kindness/ honesty/ hard work made me nauseated and depressed and sick on bed for 3 consecutive days. Doctor said it’s the food and climate. Definitely I thought, the food of money and climate of money again had sucked up my soul.<br />I tell you it’s so tiring to even pen them down here on an MS word page. Basically it scares me because everything that happens once has a chance of not happening again but something that happens twice has a higher chance of happening thrice or more…and I have been to that place more than twice.<br />I would rather prefer to nestle the face against the chest of dusty Raipur or any other remote area…but Kolkata? A big ‘NO’. Because I don’t want my teeth should fall before age, due to frequent gritting. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Cheers Kolkatians! Don’t come out, be there.</span>Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-34019254335741207782010-04-13T09:19:00.000-07:002010-04-13T09:32:34.449-07:00On a winter night<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/S8SbadBsPjI/AAAAAAAAADo/vrwcVK_dPT8/s1600/wall-puppy.bmp"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/S8SbadBsPjI/AAAAAAAAADo/vrwcVK_dPT8/s320/wall-puppy.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459659527050509874" /></a><br /><br /><br />Life has taken Rajneesh Vaid of Pendra Road to an unwanted flight of gloominess on the chilly night that he would remember for his life time because there are few things that happen in life only to haunt you forever…as told to Rashmi Drolia.<br />I can never forget the frosted fate that night contained in its breast for me and him as well. It’s even harder to forget those helpless and complaining eyes begging in front of me. <br />It struck exactly two at midnight when I stepped down on the Bhilai Powerhouse railway station. The chill and fog soon hogged up the passengers who boarded off with me on the station. I was supposed to move to my brother’s place but I didn’t, first, because I didn’t want to disturb him midnight, second there were no conveyance available and ofcourse, the night really seemed like a virgin bride.<br />Excited to enjoy the beauty of night I walked towards the lone tea stall to give myself a warm quaff of ‘ispesal chai’. Though the tea stall was more of a man with teapot and stove but he looked like a warm lifeline to me. Highway beside the stall was attired with smoke of boiling tea merged in the thick fog that gleamed occasionally with running vehicle’s light, stabbing the smog till the other end. I have always loved this facet of night when I am able to see it from this close that slowly slips away into dawn.<br />I asked the chaiwala to make it strong while I lit up my cigarette. The first whiff was as soothing to chest as was the ‘kiyukiyu’ sound of that puppy to my ears from across the road. I continued hearing without looking at him. Chaiwala placed the grubby glass in front of me when the sound painfully pitched with the bone-chilling wind. Oh! He must be whimpering due to cold, I thought. Chaiwala noticed me glancing at the shivering puppy and he offered to explain “Saheb I have already covered it with a sheet but as it’s frigidly cold for that baby, he is moaning. In fact he had 4-6 siblings who succumbed to cold, this one will hopefully survive as the season is soon going to end and also he has a quilt now.”<br />Suddenly I whistled towards the pup while listening to chaiwala, once, twice..the baby dog lazily moaned to stand and stretch only to lie back on its cozy quilt. Returning the grubby glass to chaiwala I stood up holding my shoulder bag and whistled again towards him. This time he sluggishly stood on the quilt and played with its fur on head. Meanwhile desire to have one more glass of tea took over and I was struggling with thought of having it or not. It was then that the puppy looked at me as if asking “what dude, whom are you whistling at, is it me?” <br />I ordered for another tea and affectionately whistled at him. Affection is something that even an animal understands. His eyes almost glittered with fondness and he stepped towards me. He was on mid of the road when those two lights glared from between the fog and stamp-crossed the squeal that still echoes in my ears. My heart stopped beating! I raced towards him where his rear legs and half of stomach were stuck flat to the road and he groaned to full strength standing on his front legs. He looked at me for the second time. A stare that urge suicide. His gaze begged for life, pained with complains and questioned me “why”.<br />My eyes refused to see it anymore and I looked away but couldn’t bury the groans he made breathlessly. I cursed myself. I was mumbling a doom’s prayer within. It was granted soon when two lights flashed again and stamp-crossed another wail of the same pup. The highway turned lifeless. And without exchanging looks with chaiwala I went away, the shoulder bag then seemed gravely heavy.<br />--------------------------------Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-6446238603960631182010-04-12T03:59:00.000-07:002010-04-12T04:24:36.604-07:00Nothing Much…As I have nothing much to talk about, I have been publishing the published stories…some of you might find them interesting.<br />****<br />There’s not much happening except the blazing sun that almost baked me the other day when I was out without sun protection. Tried to drive in to office due to the killing heat today but it dawned on me that car is a big responsibility. It had a breakdown, luckily soon after I parked it. Sobs..<br />****<br />Got in touch with the author Paulo Coelho, icon Kiran Bedi, journalist Shishir Joshi, columnist Jug Suraiya to writing for my newspaper and succeeded. It’s true, once you achieve what you wish for, it seems too small to mention. But I felt it important to mention first because I don’t have much to write here (And I strongly want to), second because it makes me feel light jotting down small incidences of my life.<br />***<br />Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Interpreter of Maladies’, nice one. Though am a bit slow this time but it’s fine to be slow at times isn’t? Another half written book has been given to me by my boss which could give him a good author’s tag! (I made this personal judgement after reading almost half of the half written book.)<br />***<br />Office is stinking today. Some weird smell that’s getting all over me now and probably I would be off to home within half an hour. Need fresh air. Plus the AC concealed within the walls is infrequently switched on. Oh! The timings have been revised that would perhaps not do more good to the work assigned to me. (Am anyway working from home regardless of what I do at office, I have to, for my sake)<br />***<br />Wedding bells?? Huh…they are still far off. Though I’ll be soon flying to Kolkata for shopping and all but the fear of getting married hasn’t yet got over me, good for me.<br />***<br />Watched ‘Clash Of Titans’, that strangely reminds me of Harry Potter and I liked it :) :)<br /><br />Anyway…over. That’s all about what I am doing now. I have something in mind to write about…will soon get back.Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-14212605638014372602010-04-12T03:57:00.000-07:002010-04-12T09:56:59.648-07:00The ‘Indo-Pak Marital Match’<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/S8NQz6XwpeI/AAAAAAAAADg/AuR8i0Lh2lE/s1600/sania.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 171px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1_CsX4xWwzM/S8NQz6XwpeI/AAAAAAAAADg/AuR8i0Lh2lE/s320/sania.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459296026075637218" /></a><br />India and Pakistan, as if both are twins have been moving constantly with bone of contention since ages. Adding flame to it or as the phrase goes better ‘sprinkling salt to the wound’ our sports superstar Sania Mirza announced about her marriage on April 15, 2010 with the Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. That was on verge of ‘may or may not be’ due to the blazing controversies noticed in past few days.<br />Hardly the news started flashing/printing and telling the tale of consequences for both the countries, criticism (which could have turned into threat, banishment on Sania, even the word ‘deshdrohi’ reached my ears through the tv speakers) for choosing a Pakistani guy, guessing on Sania would play for Pakistan and all that blah. No sooner breaking news aired, “Shoaib pehle se shadishuda hai…Shoaib dagabaaz hai…Shoaib ki pehli biwi ka pata chala.”Phew! Media got a scoop for the rest of the whole week. “So what’s your opinion on Sania’s upcoming marital drama,” they put the mike randomly before citizens to sensationalise the storm that has already taken a bad shape. “Sania ne Bharat ko dhoka diya hai, ek musalman akhir dil se Pakistani hi rehta hai chahe wo Hindustan mai hi kyun na reh raha ho…” Given a chance, people spat every possible thing to flame controversy against the issue. I mean do these cranky people deserve the time that we give in watching tv news? Actually no, they are the ones who trigger communal riot and disturbance in country; they shouldn’t be given space in newspapers and news channels. <br />Vir Sanghvi writes in a column, “A young girl is getting married and that should be an occasion of joy. Instead we are turning it into an excuse to spew hatred.” Very true. Currently the scenario has become like a global importance as if every citizen ought to have an opinion on Sania-Shoaib drama. Well, this write-up also adds on the list of opinion.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What She says for Shoaib…</span><br />She tweeted, explained in press conference,"..Me and my family know what the truth is, we've known it all along and we have confidence in god's justice.” Exactly!! Let’s just drop off the mess and let her go with the decision. Anyway Shoaib has signed the divorced papers and shrugged away from the controversy. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Digging into Pak??</span><br />I was thinking about the unbelievable calmness that Pakistan has managed to maintain on the issue and only hinted to support Shoaib if required. Just imagine, what if the situation was the other way round, Pakistani bride and Indian groom? Definitely she would have been slaughtered like a goat, I believe. The point on prominent female artist is nonetheless least counted in that country.<br />The world knows Pakistan has a habit of conferring the title of ‘daughter’ on women. There was Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of the East, a title the late prime minister was recognised by until the day she died. Then there was Aafia Siddiqui, a neuroscientist who was dubbed the daughter of Pakistan by a country outraged on her alleged abuse at the coalition forces in Afghanistan.<br />And again Pakistan has welcomed its new daughter rather a daughter-in-law, Sania Mirza, India’s one of most recognisable name. It’s the same country that criticised breathlessly from her tennis attire of short skirts to animated t.shirts when she debuted on the world stage!!<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">A ‘?’ MARK</span><br />Sania has shown to be very supportive towards Shoaib after the bombshells of previous wife being allegedly pregnant and aborted explode. But had Sania been at Shoaib’s place with allegations related to her past, it’s doubtful she would have been accepted by Pakistan or Shoaib himself! So, Sania, you deserve a round of applause here, you have actually shown how Indian you are, the Bharatiya nari who forgives all her husband’s (or hubby-to-be) misdeeds.<br />Hence proved: Sania is truly Indian. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">LOOKING BACK ON SERIOUS NODE</span><br />If I sneak into the past of Pakistani cricketers like Mohsin Khan who married bollywood actress Reena Roy or Imran Khan who married to UK socialite Jemima Goldsmith, and many more like them, they ultimately chose to separate after disgusting each other. There weren’t more years to marriage. Therefore, let’s cross fingers for the new forthcoming couples.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">An Answer to All</span><br />-What if Sania is forced to play tennis for Pakistan and she refuses?<br />-What if she is asked to settle in Lahore and not Dubai?<br />-God forbid what if some Islamist group tries to gun her down like they did with Benazir?<br />-What if Sania-Shoaib couldn’t turn up as a good couple just like Reena and Mohsin?<br />Answer: What if none of the above works out and the wedlock between the two sports star create a history giving birth to a new era of Indo-Pak sweet relationship? Keep Imagining!<br />Sania-Shoaib: April 15 is close so get closer and say cheese!!<br />-------------------------------Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-16078036727902675302010-03-19T09:59:00.000-07:002010-03-19T10:01:41.759-07:00Game That’s A ReligionThat's one of my favourite article!!<br /><br />Yeah! “‘Chouka mara rey’, ‘buddy leave the bat it’s my turn now’, ‘tu khudko Sachin samajhta hai kya,’” all these cricket terminologies are often heard from the street across the house while people are having their most relaxing moment sipping evening tea in balconies. The sporty sound threatens to convert into a howl if it is a holiday! The after-effect of ICC Champions’ Trophy and UEFA Champions’ league matches and current IPL has tickled the sporty hormone of kids and youth to play cricket in their campus. <br /><br />‘Cluckk’, broke off the windowpane followed by a thick silence in the street. There falls the thunderstorm when the owner of windowpane appears frowningly on the little monsters playing cricket in street who immediately want to disappear but after getting back their cricket ball. It is a usual event that takes place in almost all the societies, gullies and mohhallas. Let’s call it the ‘Chronicles of Gully Cricket’ or ‘Backyard Cricket’? Well the name doesn’t make any difference to the carefree chaps armed with bats and balls shouting, fielding and exclaiming at the same time. Sporting an indigenous game in their lane, their gullies, they call it simply Cricket!<br />‘Simply’ because it barely needs a cricket kit, pitch, uniform or even a proper bat and ball. “It is a team-less, ground-less, umpire-less and a free of rules game we play !,” exclaimed Harshit Agrawal, a ten year old kid while playing Gully Cricket in the lane near his house. Asking about the strategies that they follow he said that the place for playing is never decided beforehand, it varies from garage, street to a quadrangle of four flats and a tar road of the gully. Even the bat and stumps could be of any shape (or say shapeless) as long as the ball can hit them both accordingly. “The bat should be suitably gripped, be it a small rectangular board or the one that is already bat-shaped and mummy uses for beating the clothes,” blinked Harshit. His friend Golu joined in to detail further about the tennis ball they use to avoid injuries as the cork ball used in cricket hurts hard, above all tennis balls are cheaper costing from Rs 25-30.<br />“A prop is used as a stump which could be a bottle of cold drink, a carton, even a bucket sometimes, a sign on the wall or even bricks give proxy to stumps. When ball hits the prop that means the striker has to leave the bat,” they delighted realising that people take interest to study their regular game. Best are the rules that are presumed and have chances to change any moment of the game, more like a home-made recipe. They don’t need to toss as to which team would bat first because they strike on chance-by-chance basis. <br />Interestingly Gully cricket says that no player can be given ‘out’ if he hasn’t scored a single run and even the first ball ‘out’ is not considered. “Ofcourse we do have wides and no balls where wide add a run to score, no balls provides a free hit,” Harshit explained. Obviously batting plays the dominating role so everyone wants to bat atleast once before breaking down a windowpane or any such object. And they bowl six balls per over, how many overs, varies with the number of kids and their ‘hours-of-leisure’. <br />Yes, this game is incomplete without fours and sixes. “We designate an object like a rock or tree as the boundaries for fours and when the ball gets out of boundary wall or out of sight adds a six to the score,” the kids said. They delegate fielder’s responsibility to a newcomer or the youngest kid who chases the ball inarguably. <br />Who would not love to play a game which is not captain-ed by anyone and which doesn’t need even an umpire or spectators? At the time of conflict on ‘out and not out’ either they depend upon the players who are already out and watching the game or a vendor across the street who occasionally watched and commented on their performance, gets the authority to decide. If none of the ideas work, they simply end the match to begin a new one next day. As simple as that! “There are many rules that are made and trashed every day, we can’t tell about all the rules as we don’t remember. But we can play till the time we are bone-tired,” the kids giggled. <br />The game usually ends with a broken windowpane or a fight or missing the ball. Cricket might be the gentlemen’s game, but gully cricket is for real tough kids. So grab a bat or any approximation of it and get on the Gully to play Gully Cricket. <br /> By:Rashmi Drolia<br />-----------------------------------Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500724603990030302.post-40749330765033876342010-03-11T01:36:00.000-08:002010-03-11T08:45:56.032-08:00No More...Guess it's getting bore out there, simply publishing the published matter, nothing really constructive on the blog.<br />I have been waiting to write something about my native place, where I am born, brought-up, educated, lived and....still living. And the sad part is still living...here. True, I don't like this place called Raipur. I feel sorry to mention this because not more than three years ago I adored it. I loved it with its each corner. <br />I have observed drastic change since it has become the capital of Chhattisgarh. I have keenly noted the change in attitude of people here. They were never so rude or selfish or <span style="font-style:italic;">'thugs'</span>. Not only the infrastructure of Raipur but also the minds of people had a makeover. The infrastructure, I mean there was so much of space while walking or driving that has been suddenly filled up with a crowd like that of Mumbai. It's scary! Believe me, it feels like...where this humongous crowd takes birth from, suddenly people have started shifting here! Raipur was never so thickly populated. And while typing this, I can figure out the frown of concern on my face. <br />Years ago when I learnt driving two wheeler as a teenager, citizens co-operated through non-verbal communication and gave sides to the learner. And now, the no-traffic sense, people racing in haste, honking ugly horns, rickshaw, cycle walah, trucks, city buses, autos, cars and modified bikes and stray cattle, everyone is struggling to save their life walking on the same lane. It’s like, anything can happen to you any moment! It's so depressing and it really is…I have heard people saying this and self-experienced it. Then I challenged myself to learn driving four-wheeler, though I succeeded but only after three long sessions from different driving schools. I don't feel ashamed on mentioning it because it was a huge challenge and now I believe I can drive confidently on any <span style="font-style:italic;">kaccha-pukka or bhid bhara ilaka.</span> <br />Atleast Raipur has gifted me with this skill- driving confidently.<br />I recollect the time when a word against Raipur triggered up a fight and today it's the same me puking everything against it. Sad. Not only it has a constantly increasing population but also the mindset of people dejects me. I believed, it exclusively irritates me-the mindset of people, but later I realised that my irritation matches to those who are guests here or have recently shifted. They too crib about same problems. You talk in English, they call you ‘angrez’, you travel to gupchupwalah in rickshaw or auto, they mock at you and the gupchupwalah hardly consider you as a customer but stepping out from a car gets you attention from everyone making you feel important (saying this because I have tried on both). I know it’s not new but believe me the expression on their faces, you wouldn’t find anywhere else.<br />Then talk about work and ‘they’ will be off for the next 3 days or more? Yes, they don’t want to work. Life here doesn’t starts before 11 am! If you are a workaholic, prefer working from home because anyway the shutters are closed and the clients/customers/staff wouldn’t answer your calls. Besides if it’s a festival, be prepared to work more for next few days (almost 10 days) because the labour/staff/driver/maid would be holidaying in Hawaii. They don’t care about money but rest. Chhattisgarh state once known for its abundant labour is suddenly facing deficiency. Strange! A drastic change has been observed in the attitude of labour class since the state has become ‘independent’. Because ‘they’ get 30 kgs of rice for just Rs3 per month with free salt and other necessities, they have grown incredibly lethargic. And the extra rice (30 kgs is too much already) is sold to poorer people on higher rates. How clever! Men prefer to sit home and booze while the ladies of the house go out to work. What more on this?<br />Might be I criticise more about this place because I have started hating it terribly. I hate the people here, their attitude, the pollution (Raipur is most polluted city of the country) that has gifted me with forever dandruff to my silky hair, the sun here (48 degrees in summer!) tans my skin within 2 minutes if am out without shade, the surrounding that gives me nothing substantial to learn and develop, ofcourse the insane traffic, the piercing eyes of people when I am out with my fiancé or even alone and almost everything about this place pisses me off. I really wanna get out of this place ASAP.<br />Amen!Rashmi Droliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744118352183614030noreply@blogger.com12